


Fever Dream

by ari_sia



Series: it's okay if you can't catch your breath (you can take the oxygen straight out of my own chest) [1]
Category: 3 Idiots (2009)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Pining, stuff i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:28:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25037737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ari_sia/pseuds/ari_sia
Summary: sometimes you end up pining for your best friend for years and that is absolutely okay
Relationships: Farhan Qureshi/ Ranchhoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad| Phunsuk Wangdu
Series: it's okay if you can't catch your breath (you can take the oxygen straight out of my own chest) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1850242
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17





	Fever Dream

**Author's Note:**

> was disappointed by the lack of Rancho/ Farhan fics so i decided to take the matter into my own hands. behold the ramblings of a sick and anxious person. i just hope it's coherent. i swear i will proofread this mess one day.

If he was to pinpoint the exact reason that made him end up here, he wouldn’t be able to find one. He thought about that night a lot but even years later he didn’t know what was it that made it so damning.

Maybe it was because of the state he was in when he Rancho for the first time: With his self-respect on the floor and head bowing in surrender. He had gotten in I.C.E by lying, hiding and covering himself in layers of deceit and on the very first night he was stripped completely naked of everything.

Maybe it was just that sense of being left so bare that after a long time in years, his heart slipped. Just for a split moment. He still thinks that if they had met in a different setting, if Rancho hadn’t just decided to fucking electrocute that senior, if Rancho hadn’t been so different from him from the start that everything would’ve been okay.

But wouldn’t that be the same as asking Rancho to just not be himself?

He laughs to himself, yeah, if only Rancho wasn’t Rancho everything would’ve been easier.

That was just his logic, if only his father wasn’t his father, if only—fuck ‘if only’ s

Before they are anything else, they are their roll numbers and their grades. Before everything, they are the students of I.C.E. Farhan has to remember that, he _has_ to or he won’t be able to survive here.

He is a rational person; he has hidden his true feelings forever because that’s what needed to be done.

But when it came to Rancho, Farhan lost all his rationality, all his ability to reason and stay grounded to reality. He gave himself zero freedom to daydream about ‘what if’s and ‘if only’s but Rancho took one look at him and tore down all of those defenses.

Honestly that sense of irrationality followed him whenever he heard Rancho’s name. Years later he didn’t know how but he got himself to get a plane to make an emergency landing, because Chatur—the absolute dick—said he’d found Rancho, even though he technically hadn’t.

He remembers barely coming down from the adrenaline rush brought on by the mere mention of Rancho with Chatur blabbering in the background--How the fuck did that date remain engraved there for so long anyway? —before he was caught off guard again by Rancho’s unsuspecting face caught in a picture.

There was no room for doubt this time. Farhan had to find that fucker.

-

“Life is a race.” and Farhan is running.  
Farhan is running away very fast from all of his problems. Virus should be proud of him.

Lying to yourself is amazing. Raju would go on ranting about why Rancho would land them in huge trouble and Farhan would just be too fascinated by Rancho to really listen to him.

Farhan knew Raju was right. Of course, he knew what going against the system meant and he wouldn’t lie, he was scared too. That is why he liked watching Rancho. He chalked up his fascination with Rancho as just him getting the satisfaction of rebelling against the system vicariously through Rancho. Rancho was all of the ‘what if’s Farhan had suppressed come to life. Farhan thinks he should’ve been angry at Rancho for being able to do things he had struggled with all his life without even thinking twice, but he wasn’t. He doesn’t think he could ever have been mad at Rancho even if he tried.

Before he realized Farhan was somehow breaking rules and crashing weddings. He even ended up being cheeky with the Director of the fucking I.C.E. Although, Farhan really liked being able to say, ‘I won’t even get married’ even as a joke because oh look, for once he isn’t lying about his love life. He wonders how he would’ve turned out if he hadn’t crashed into Rancho. Would he still be in his shell of deceit? Would he be safe in that shell?

Some nights he lay awake, listening to Rancho’s low breathing as he slept, wondering if Rancho knew, if he _really knew_. Maybe it was a coincidence or maybe it was just who he was but Rancho would look right through people, gaze at their deepest, darkest secrets, things that they were too afraid to let out in the open and just smile at them as if it was okay, normal. It made Farhan comfortable with himself, a bit too comfortable and that was scary. Rancho felt like a dream that was too realistic to be just a dream. It felt like if you just tried hard enough maybe it would turn into your reality but at the end of the day it was still just a dream. It messed up Farhan’s reality and even as Farhan let himself chase after Rancho, he could already feel how hard he would fall when he would have to face his reality once again.

Farhan honestly didn’t know how to feel about Rancho not being Rancho at all. "Chote" rang unfamiliar in his head and he no longer knew which face to place to the name "Rancchoddas". He found a middle ground with "Rancho"

There is so much Farhan never really understood about Rancho but Farhan liked that Rancho’s world was never complicated. If Rancho wanted something he would simply go after it. He ended up getting involved in the forgery of a degree because he was just a dumbass who wanted to fool around with machines. Now Farhan could see that Rancho’s world was just as complicated as anyone else's but for the simplest of reasons. The man just wanted to go to college. 

Pia was a nice person. Pia also had something she was running away from and when you are running away from something you are bound to collide with Rancho. In his lowest of moments Farhan lets himself think that if only they hadn’t crashed that wedding, if only—again with the ‘if only’s. What was it about Rancho that made Farhan want to chase a dream that could never be his?

But it wasn’t as if that would change anything. Run from it or face it, the result remains the same.

While Farhan is and has been in love with Rancho for longer than he can remember, Rancho…just wasn’t interested.

“Do you know what your passion is?” Rancho slurs out

 _You_ , his drunk brain helpfully replies.

Farhan had let himself hope. All his life Farhan really just wanted someone to listen to him, really listen to him. People accused him of being too quiet but Farhan could never bring himself to tell them how fake their, ‘I’ll listen to you’s and ‘you can talk to me’ felt to him. With Rancho it felt like he didn’t have to say anything to be heard so he let himself hope. He couldn’t help it, hope is like that. It destroys you from inside out.

So, when he realizes that for once in his life Rancho is actually oblivious, truly blind to Farhan’s secret, he decided to step back into his shell. The thing is, Rancho is too idealistic sometimes. He can’t leave engineering in his last year of college for the same reason he can’t tell anyone he is in love. Some things you just need too much courage to face and even ‘All iz well’ can’t give him that kind of strength.

So right there, with Raju’s drunk laughter filtering through Rancho’s preaching, Farhan makes a decision.

He still doesn’t know what pushing Rancho to confess to Pia was supposed to establish, but hey, it gave him a reason to step back.

When he thinks about it maybe that was when he really let Rancho go. When he really gave up on him.

He wasn’t about to let Rancho get away from him this time. He wasn’t about let this moment become another, ‘If only I hadn’t let him go’. Farhan was the one who let Rancho leave in that goddamn taxi and he wasn’t about to let the fucker walk away again.

There was nothing wise about chasing a fever dream, a reality hat could never be yours and under normal circumstances Farhan would never do something this stupid.

But for Rancho, he would chase the most unreachable and frivolous of dreams. For Rancho he would test the boundaries of his reality.

-

He still doesn’t understand how he ever worked up the courage to ask for his father’s permission to let him pursue his dream. He does, of course, but he really didn’t think Rancho could influence him to the point he was willing to do something he promised himself he wouldn’t do. He promised himself he would never give up on his father’s dreams for his own happiness.

All his life he’s just been trying to do what his father wanted from, to have his love, his acceptance but somewhere he was trying to make up for the fact that he was queer and that was the one thing he could never change about himself. So he changed whatever he could, his dreams, his personality, his aspirations. All because he wanted his father to just love him.

People always talk about how a parent’s love is unconditional but no one ever seems to notice how hard a child struggles just so he can be loved by his parents.

But his father let him quit engineering just as his last year was about to end.

It sparked a small ray of hope inside him, that sometime in the future he could have that conversation with his parents too. It no longer mattered to him how his parents would react, he just wanted to stop living a lie. He didn’t want to let himself down by constantly feeling guilty for something that wasn’t his fault.

-

Pia slaps Rancho and the next words out of her mouth are:

“Couldn’t you say anything before leaving?”

“Uh-I—”

“Nevermind I have something very important to say to you”

“Okay?”

“I’m not in love with you. I never was—” Pia tires to calm herself down but it felt like her soul was on fire, “It’s just that all my life people just went around telling me that this is what love is supposed to feel like and everyone feels it this way—but—but—”

Pia pauses, the heat from the flames of a secret kept buried too long was too strong. It was Rancho who continued, “But like it doesn’t make sense to you, so you just do what feels like it would fit the right definition of love” in a very quiet voice, as if he was the one confessing.

Pia looks up in surprise meeting Rancho’s eyes that were filled with understanding, “YES! So when you said oh wait no Pia you’re doing love wrong, this is what it is supposed to feel like, I just thought okay, this is what love is so right now I’m going to decide to be in love with you”

Rancho laughs a little at that and Pia lets out a nervous chuckle too, “But you don’t decide to be in love with someone.” He says, “That’s is not how it works.”

“No.” Pia practically whispers, “It’s not.”

They’re silent for a moment before Pia speaks again, much more calmly, “I don’t think I was in love with you. I just wanted to be in love with you because I just wanted to belong.”

Rancho smiles at her, a weight lifted from both their chests, “I just thought I was in love with you because everyone kept saying I was and I just thought that maybe they were right and I just didn’t know what love was supposed to feel like”

Rancho continues on in a lighter tone, “I mean that thing about us not kissing in my dreams made sense so many years later. The nose came in between because I didn’t _want_ to kiss you”

Pia laughs and then her eyes become even wider as she recalls her own incident, “Oh god and I tried to kiss you when I was drunk because I just wanted that butterflies in your stomach thing everyone kept talking about because I just didn’t feel it, no matter what I did and I thought that maybe if I kissed you—

Pia breathes in.

“I’m aromantic”

“I’m gay.”

Pia mumbled something under her breath.

“hm?”

Pia looks at Farhan’s face in the distance, “I know.”

-

Farhan is okay. He is absolutely okay with Pia getting to Rancho first. He is absolutely okay with watching them hug. Okay, it hurts, yes but if he gets to see Rancho one more time, to look at his mischievous smile and hear his stupid philosophies, to see him, it’s all okay. If he gets to see everything that he thought he wouldn’t get to see ever again in his life, he is okay.

He looks at Raju’s smile and they walk towards the couple. Pia lets Farhan and Raju beat the shit out of Rancho before she explains that they’re not a couple and surprisingly it’s Raju who breaks first,  
“what do you mean you’re not in love with each other?!”

“We almost got suspended because of you two!” He screams at the guilty looking not-couple.

Raju grabs Farhan’s jacket and screams, “I fucking fell off the second floor of your house!”. Surprisingly Farhan’s jacket doesn’t tear from the force of Raju’s fury. He’ll have to get more jackets from the brand.

 _I also imagined an entire song sequence and a romantic scooter ride_ , thinks Farhan, _I got a fucking scooter for Pia to fulfill your weird fantasy_ , _again._ Farhan just thinks because the words won’t come out.

“We crashed a wedding, _again_!” Now Raju is just yelling at the lake, “How can you not know who you are in love with oh my _god_ ” It is at the point that Pia grabs Raju and takes him away to ‘explain things’ but Farhan has bigger problems. Rancho is staring at him and it’s scary. The feelings of 20-year-old Farhan are bubbling up in his chest and it’s fucking scary.

“So like what’s your real name then?” Rancho is quiet and Farhan is two seconds away from just running away because this is weird and awkward. Rancho isn’t quiet. Rancho is never quiet. But he tries again just for the sake of it, “Oh god, it’s not something weirder than Rancchhodas Chanchad right?”

Rancho avoids eye contact and scratches the back of his head. He does that when he has something to say, Farhan’s encyclopedia of Rancho supplies.

Farhan moves forward trying to shrug off the way Rancho flinched when he grabbed his shoulders, “Are you married or something? I thought you would never get over Pia”

“I was never in love with her.”

“Hain?”

That takes him aback. He just stares at Rancho.

Rancho immediately looks down and scratches the back of his head and Farhan almost melts again. Good god, how could one person stay in love with someone for so long. What was wrong with Farhan?

“Let’s ju—” Farhan is cut off by Rancho. It was just a peck. Rancho turns his gaze to the ground again and looks anywhere but towards Farhan.

“I was in love with you, am in love with you. I don’t know. I’m sorry if you feel weird but—” Rancho’s voice breaks and Farhan absolutely loses it.

“Oh my god you’re fucking hesitating. His Holiness Rancchoddas—or whatever your name is— is fucking hesitating to do something. Are you scared?” Farhan says feeling a sense of accomplishment as Rancho keeps backing up as Farhan comes closer.

“Eyy. I don’t get scared” Farhan would’ve believed him if only his voice wasn’t shaking so much

“Are you sure? So why are you backing away?” Rancho stops backing away and looks up—finally—to meet Farhan’s eyes.

“I’m not scared.” He says, his eyes trained on Farhan’s face. Farhan takes another step and he can feel Rancho shaking slightly and Farhan takes a split moment to memorize Rancho’s face, the way his eyes shook slightly, the way he liked his lips, the way his eyebrows twitched.

“Yeah?” Farhan finally breathes out, “Prove it” Rancho doesn’t move an inch and for once it’s Farhan who takes a step towards Rancho who meets him halfway. It’s weird that he’s imagined this so many times, holding Rancho in his arms, devouring him but none of his imaginary kisses could ever come close to the real thing. Farhan can feel Rancho’s hands hesitantly wrapping around his torso while Farhan’s hand is firmly placed against the back of Rancho’s head. His mouth burns from the heat and the weight of memories he had tried so hard to suppress. Farhan almost kneels over from the sheer force of emotions that he put into it. It’s Rancho who pulls back, even though Farhan had no intention of letting him go.

“uh holy fuck.” Rancho is flushed and out of breath and for once, at a loss for words. Farhan could feel his heart beating at an ungodly rate but he couldn’t care less. His reality had just crashed and Rancho, his fever dream, had replaced it.

“Rise and shine, you fucker” Farhan’s voice feels strange to him, filled with emotions he had never felt before, “I’ve been in love with you ever since I saw you.”

Rancho stares and this time it’s him who crashes against Farhan, who shakes slightly before regaining his balance, letting Rancho sink into him—

“Oh my god—guys! you’re in _public_ ” Raju’s bewildered voice calls out while Pia giggles.

Rancho and Farhan break apart and while Rancho looked a little sheepish Farhan couldn’t be bothered to feel embarrassed about the situation.

“Does anyone else want to come out to me?” Raju asks to no one in particular, “Oi Chatur!” Raju shouts, “ARE YOU QUEER TOO?”

Farhan, staying true to his 21-year-old self, chooses to ignore everything else and just focuses on Rancho. Only difference was that now Rancho was staring back at him.

**Author's Note:**

> Life is a shitfest but the fact that kulfi exists makes it a lil better.  
> Thank you for going through my trash.  
> Please be kind to me I'm small and anxious.  
> Or come scream at me on my tumblr: https://username-ari-ver9.tumblr.com/


End file.
